To:MAXIM GORKY

Written:Written after January 25, 1913Published:First published in 1924 inLenin Miscellany I.

      Sent from Cracow to Capri.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1976],

      Moscow,Volume 35,

      pages74-77.Translated:Andrew RothsteinTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Ofcourse, I have nothing against your sending my letter
to Tikhonov.

Afteryour account I have become interested in
Lunacharsky’s article “Between Fear and Hope”. Couldn’t
you send it to me, if you have a copy? If you want it I
shall return it without fail.

Thecollections for the Moscow paper rejoiced us greatly.Ourtrio of deputies from Moscow Region—Malinovsky,
Shagov and Samoilov—will set about this. That has already
been agreed. But care is needed: before consolidatingPravda, we cannot set about a Moscow paper. We have
a plan for organising aMoskovskaya
Pravda.[3]

Pleasewrite to Tikhonov that he should talkonlyto
Badayev andMalinovsky—but he must talk with them.

Iwas particularly glad of the following words in your
letter: “From all the plans and suppositions of the Russian
intelligentsia, it is clear beyond any doubt that socialist
thought isinterlardedwith various currentsradicallyhostile to it. They include mysticism, and metaphysics,
and opportunism, and reformism, and relapses into
Narodism. All these currents areall the morehostile because
they areextremely indefiniteand, not having their own
platforms, cannot determine themselves with sufficient
clarity.”

Iunderline the words which have particularly delighted
me. That’s just it: “radically hostile”, and all the more
so because they are indefinite. You ask, for example, aboutStepanov
(I. I.).[4]What did he turn out to be in the era
of collapse and vacillation, 1908–11 (yet he was a good
fellow, a hard worker, well-read, etc.)? He wanted to make
peace with the Vperyodists. But then that means that he
was wobbling himself.

Hewrote letters to me about giving up the democratic
revolution in Russia as a bad job, that in our country things
would proceed without revolution, on Austrian lines.
I branded him as a liquidator for these philistine ideas.
He was offended. And thenLarin[5]blurted out his ideas
in print.

NowStepanov isdemonstrativelywriting not for us but
for Rozhkov’s paperNovaya Sibirat
Irkutsk.[6]And do
you know what “trend” Rozhkov has discovered? Did you
read his article inNasha Zaryaof 1911 and my reply inZvezda?[1]And Rozhkov hasdug himself in asan arch–
opportunist. And Stepanov? Allah knows. That’s just it: an
“extremely indefinite” and muddled position. I shouldneverentrust any at all independent department to
Stepanov now: he himself doesn’t know where he will jump
next. But probably he could be a useful contributor. He
is one of those who haven’t “seen clearly”. To commission
him to “organise” a department means to killboth himand the department for certain.

Youwrite: “It’s time we had our journal, but we haven’t,
a sufficient number of people who have come properly to
terms with each other for this.”

Idon’t accept the second part of this sentence. The
journal wouldobligea sufficient number of people tocome to
termswith each other, provided there was a journal,
provided there was anucleus.

Anucleus does exist, but there is no full-size journal
for external reasons—no money. If we had money, I am
sure we could manage a full-size journal even now, because
in addition to thenucleusof contributors we could, for
payment, draw ina lot of peopleby giving out subjects
and allocating jobs.

Solong as we have no money, we must in my opinion
not only dream hut build upon what we’ve got, in other
words, onProsveshcheniye.[7]Of course, it’s a little fish,
but in the first place a big fish, like everything else, grows
from a little one. Secondly, better a little fish than a big
cockroach.

It’stime, high time, tobegincoming to terms, if we want
to have “people who have come to terms” in large numbers.

“It’stime we had our journal.” The literary nucleus
is there. The correctness of the line has been confirmed
by the experience of 12 years (or even 20), and particularly
by the experience of the last six years. We should gather
around this nucleus, thereby defining it in greater detail,
training it up and expanding. Wehadto begin with the
illegal one and withPravda. But we don’t want tostopat that. And therefore, once you have said that “it’s time
we had our journal”, allow me to call you to account for
these words:eitherto draft out at once a plan of enquiries
for money for a full-size journal with such-and-such a
programme, such-and-such an editorial board and
such-and-such a body of contributors,orto begin on the same
plan expandingProsveshcheniye.

Ormore truly, noteither—or, butboth.

Iawait your reply. You probably have already had a
letter from Vienna aboutProsveshcheniye. There is a reliable
hope of consolidating it for 1913 in a smaller form. You
want us to “have our journal”, then let’s push it ahead
together.

Ihaven’t heard anything about the Dashnaks. But I
think it’s a nonsensical rumour. It’s been started by the
government, which wants to swallow up Turkish
Armenia.[8]

TheP.P.S.[2]are undoubtedlyforAustria and will fight
for her. A war between Austria and Russia would be a
very useful thing for the revolution (throughout Eastern
Europe), but it’s not very probable that Franz-Josef and
Nicky will give us this pleasure.

Youask me to keep you better informed. With pleasure—
only you must reply. I send you (for the time beingconfidentially) the resolutions of our recent conference (which
in my view was very successful and will play its
part).[9]

Resolutions,they say, are of all forms of literature the
most boring. I am a man who has consumed too many
resolutions. Drop me a line about how readable they are
for you (especially about revolutionary strikes and about
the liquidators).

Whatbad effect has the rumour about an amnesty had
in Russia? I don’t know. Drop me a line.

N.K.sends her regards.

Allthe best.Yours,Lenin

[1]See“A Liberal Labour Party Manifesto” (present edition Vol. 17,
pp. 313–24).—Ed.

[2]P.P.S.(Polska Partia Socjalistyczna)—Polish Socialist
Party.—Ed.

[3]Referenceis to the newspaperNash Put(Our Path). Lenin had
pointed out the necessity for a legal workers’ newspaper in
Moscow in the summer of 1912. But the fund-collecting campaign for
the Moscow newspaper did not begin until November 1912.PravdaNo. 176 for November 24 (O.S), 1912 published a “Letter from
a Group of Moscow Workers”, which indicated that it would be
possible and opportune to start a workers’ newspaper in Moscow.
The call to make collections for the paper was enthusiastically
supported by the workers, but, its appearance was delayed by the
arrest, in February 1913, of the group of Bolsheviks who were
starting it.

Thefirst number ofNash Putappeared on August 25 (
September 7), 1913. Lenin was active on the paper. Its contributors
included Maxim Gorky, Demyan Bedny, M. S. Olminsky, I. I.
Skvortsov-Stepanov, and also the Bolshevik deputies to the Fourth
Duma.Nash Putwas very popular among the workers and received
donations from 395 workers’ groups. When the paper was banned
on September 12 (25), 1913, after only 16 issues had appeared, the
Moscow workers staged a protest strike but did not succeed in
getting the ban lifted.

[4]Skvortsov-Stepanov,I. I.(1870–1928)—one of the oldest
participants in the Russian revolutionary movement. He joined the
R.S.D.L.P. in 1896, becoming a Bolshevik and Marxist writer
towards the end of 1904. On several occasions between 1907 and
1911 he was nominated by the Bolsheviks as a candidate for the
Duma. In the period of reaction he held incorrect views on the
agrarian problem and adopted a conciliatory attitude to the
anti-PartyVperyodgroup, but under Lenin’s influence overcame his
mistakes.

[5]Larin,Y. (Lurye, M. A.) (1882–1932)—Social-Democrat,
Menshevik. After the defeat of the 1905–07 revolution he became an active
supporter of liquidationism, but in August 1917 was admitted to
the Bolshevik Party. After the October Socialist Revolution he
held various administrative and managerial posts.

[6]NovayaSibir(New Siberia)—socio-political and literary daily
newspaper with a liberal orientation. It was published in Irkutsk
from December 1912 to February 1913. The liquidator N. Rozhkov
was, in practice, its editor.

[7]Prosveshcheniye(Enlightenment)—legal Bolshevik socio-political
and literary monthly; began publication in St. Petersburg in
December 1911. Maxim Gorky was editor of the fiction section. The
magazine was banned by the tsarist government on the eve of the
first world war, in June 1914. One further issue (a double one)
appeared in the autumn of 1917.

[8]Referenceis probably to rumours of the possibility of a rising in
Turkish Armenia under the leadership of the Armenian
bourgeois-nationalist Dashnaktsutyun Party. This was suggested in an
article “Turkish Armenians and Russia” in the newspaperRusskoye
Slovo(Russian Word) No. 7, January 9, 1913.

[9]Referenceis to the resolutions of the Cracow Conference of the
C.C. of the R.S.D.L.P. and Party workers (January 8–14, 1913).